Editorials
Celebrating Sheetar and 30 Years in the ‘Blood Diner’
Often in filmmaking, the movie that was conceived during the screenwriting process ends up being a completely different movie upon release. One of the more obvious examples of this is the wacky Blood Diner, released 30 years ago on July 10, 1987. What began as a serious sequel on page quickly morphed into one of the most over the top horror comedies ever.
Having fallen in love with the splatter films by the Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis, producer Jimmy Maslon purchased the rights to one of his absolute favorites by the director; 1963’s Blood Feast. The plot centered around a food caterer that liked to cook up female victims and offer sacrifices to the goddess Ishtar. With rights in possession, Maslon tapped screenwriter Michael Sonye to pen a sequel to the seminal splatter flick. The hope was that Herschell Gordon Lewis himself would direct, and the two brothers at the center of this sequel would be played by wrestler George “The Animal” Steele and actor Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). The Godfather of Gore was long retired from filmmaking at this point and would only agree to direct for a substantial sum of money. Money that the budget for this planned sequel didn’t have, which meant production couldn’t afford Steele or Berryman either. The distributor, Vestron Pictures, felt there wouldn’t be enough recognition for Blood Feast to warrant an official sequel, and so the title was changed to Blood Diner.
Then director Jackie Kong was hired to direct, as part of a three-picture deal with Vestron Pictures, and the film as we know it today took shape. Kong saw the humor in the script and pushed it as far as she could. So, all the zany antics in the film? Like characters randomly switching accents throughout the film, or rival diner owner Stan’s best friend being an inanimate dummy? All intentional. The director wasn’t just interested in pushing the envelope for humor’s sake, but also for the sake of die-hard genre fans. She knew horror fans are difficult to surprise, so she sought to catch even the most jaded horror fan off guard.
One of my favorite things about Blood Diner is how likable killer brothers Michael (Rick Burks) and George (Carl Crew) Tutman are. Kong swapped out the ghoulish brothers in the script for handsome characters that you wouldn’t suspect of chopping up women for body parts. This is one of the biggest changes that made the film such an enduring cult classic; you root for these goofball brothers to succeed in resurrecting their beloved goddess Sheetar. Their goofy antics in luring women victims is both hilarious and oddly charming. When they stroll up to the nightclub donning bizarre wigs and costumes, toss a bouncer into oncoming traffic, then laugh riotously at his head pops under a car’s tires, you can’t help but laugh with them.
Perhaps ironically, neither lead actor had acted before. With the budget so low, the cast was comprised of people pretty much found off the streets of Hollywood. With Maslon’s musical background, a wide bulk of the cast was comprised of fellow musicians and the musicians’ fan base. This included lead actor Rick Burks, who had to be convinced to play the part of smarter brother Michael. He wanted to be a musician only, not an actor. Lucky for us, he took on the part, and the horror comedy was made all the better for his natural charisma. For all its durable qualities, Blood Diner also serves as a sort of memorial to Burks, who died in a car crash at the young age of 28 less than two years after Blood Diner’s release. Gone too soon, I’m glad I got to see him shine in Blood Diner.
With Kong pushing the envelope as much as possible, it’s not surprise that the rating board despised the film. The amount of nudity and gore didn’t earn the film any favors, and the rating board hated that the murderers were two next-door nice guy types over the typical gruesome killers. The scene that made them turn the film off and declare Blood Diner as morally bankrupt, however, was the scene where the brothers wear Ronald and Nancy Reagan masks and gun down a nude aerobics class. They offered a rating of ‘X,’ so Kong accepted the film as unrated with Vestron backing her decision. She figured that if she were to cut the film to make it more acceptable for the rating board, there’d likely be only about five minutes’ worth of film.
For such a strange, fun horror comedy, perhaps the most surprising element is that it’s largely driven by women. Aside from Jackie Kong’s directing, executive producer Ellen Steloff was instrumental in getting the film greenlit at all. Kong also brought over most of her female-centric crew from previous film Night Patrol, including most of the art department, costume designer Shiz Herrera, set decorators, and makeup department. For years, most fans assumed Kong was a male.
Blood Diner is far more cult classic than outright classic, and those who have seen it either love it or hate it. Either way, you’ll never forget it. Kong and crew takes the measliest budget and stretches it to its fullest, all the while cranking the fun level up to an 11. It’s silly, it’s gory, and it’s probably offensive and these are precisely the reasons why I love it. Kong was one of the early adopters of the concept of rooting for the film’s villains, and it’s a shame she hasn’t been tapped to direct more genre work since.
While Herschell Gordon Lewis did eventually direct a legit sequel to his 1963 film, Kong’s screwball horror comedy still hasn’t seen a follow up despite ferocious, hungry goddess Sheetar being unleashed upon Hollywood 30 years ago. It’s about time to see what Sheetar has been up to all these years, and I’ve love for Kong to tell that story.
What about you? Are you team love it or hate it?
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
You must be logged in to post a comment.